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"You can leave me out of the reckoning now for Chumba and Kajiar," he said abruptly. "I'm in no mood for that sort of foolery. I'll stay here and grind at this book of mine instead. You must excuse me to Mrs Desmond; and tell her just as much of the truth as you think fit." But before he had finished speaking, Desmond was on his feet, decision in every line of him.
Thus, he agreed to share in their arrangements for the June camp, at Kajiar, a natural glade hid in the heart of Kalatope Forest: and even accepted, without demur, Colonel Mayhew's proposal to preface the 'week' with a two days' house-party at the Chumba Residency; a picturesque house, whose garden of lawns, and roses, and English trees falls sheer to the eddying river below.
The 'Kajiar week' is the central event of Dalhousie's season: an Arcadian revel of perfumed shadow, and sun-warmed earth; a carnival of camp-life; ushering in the gloom of the Great Rains; the triple tyranny of mist, mildew, and mackintoshes.
"O all that in me wanders, and is wild, Gathers into one wave, and breaks on thee." Phillips. In the deep heart of Kalatope Forest, where the trees fall apart as if by unanimous consent, the natural glade of Kajiar lies like a giant emerald under a turquoise sky. Peace broods over this sanctuary of Nature's making, dove-like, with folded wings.
Throughout the remaining eight miles neither her tongue nor her spirit flagged; and for the man at least the journey's end came too soon. It was a transformed Kajiar that basked in the full glory of noon, as they emerged from the forest, and drew rein on the high ground behind the little wooden rest-house, to enjoy a few moments' survey of the brilliant scene.
Desmond's recent tactics had but served to convince him that the walls of Jericho must be carried by assault. Whatever the outcome, the thrill of conquest must at least be his. The six-foot roadway up to Kajiar gave him ample excuse for riding needlessly close to his companion; and he inclined himself closer in talking, thus giving a provocative flavour to ordinary speech.
His mind reverted to Garth, to Sir Roger Bennet, and to the nameless unknowns who had probably bridged the space between. Since her frank confession of loyalty at Kajiar, he had refrained from expressing curiosity on the subject. But a man cannot always keep his mind from straying into forbidden places.
Then, still keeping her lids closed, she tilted her head backward, her lips just parted; and again, as on that night of enchantment at Kajiar, they were swept beyond the boundaries of space and time; beyond the stumbling-blocks, the pitiful limitations of earth. But limitations are as indispensable to life on our bewildering planet as bread and meat.
Only for one week in the year does Kajiar spring full-fledged into a place of human significance. From Dalhousie, on the one hand, and from Chumba on the other, a light-hearted crowd of revellers profanes the quiet of earth and sky.
For her the Kajiar Camp, despite its light-comedy atmosphere, had proved a nightmare of surface hilarity, broken rest, and growing distaste for the man whose name she had permitted to be coupled with her own: all to no purpose, it seemed, save to inflate his self-satisfaction, and fortify his intention, now too clearly manifest, of hindering to the utmost her reunion with her husband.
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